“He said if he had Myrtle’s legs back, he’d clean up a fortune.”
I saw her flush, but she laughed and was pleased. She started to say something, then changed her mind, and, as a customer came up, her face became a smiling mask, with innocent, wide blue eyes, looking up past my shoulder I stepped away from the window.
From my hotel I called the clerk at the Palace Hotel in Oakview. “How about those glasses that were ordered for Mrs. Lintig?” I said. “What happened to them? You were going to send them to me.”
“Gosh, Mr. Lam,” he said. “I don’t know. They never showed up. I guess she must have picked them up herself.”
I said, “Thanks. That’s what I wanted to know,” and hung up.
In the morning I hired a girl to call up every oculist, every optometrist, and every lens supply house in San Francisco to find out what doctor had sent a pair of lenses to Mrs. J. C. Lintig at the Palace Hotel in Oakview or had a client by the name of Amelia Sellar. I told her to wire me the information at the agency as soon as she had it. I climbed aboard a night bus and caught up on some of my sleep all the way to Santa Carlotta.
I’d left the agency car in an all-night garage that was within two blocks of the bus depot. I walked to the garage and handed my storage ticket to the attendant. He looked it over, then went to the office.
“When did you leave this car?” he asked.
I told him.
“It’ll take a minute or two,” he said.